Splice the mainbrace

Mary Berry has a recipe using butter. https://www.maryberry.co.uk/recipes/christmas/special-mincemeat

Hazy sun, light breeze and 8c here currently, I hope that the ‘storm’ tomorrow and into Thursday isn’t too bad. I got some tasks done yesterday that I’ve been putting off. Booked cruise parking for November/December, opticians eye test, garden bin payment, over priced boiler service (just need to get it done) and contacted joiner to replace rotten strut on open porch. I’ve still got to contact edf with them suddenly over estimating our electricity use even though we are on a smart meter, they estimate 7000 kWh per year when we use more like 3000 so it is reflecting in our monthly DD. So busy being retired😅

Thanks for your feedback. I've now had 3 quotes, the £144 one and subsequently a £95 and £90 all from 'one man bands' (or otherwise known as solos artists).

Today I signed up for a 1 year energy fix, it’s about 5% more than the current price cap. The price cap was forecast to go up by 4% in January anyway even before gas prices have risen substantially with the current conflict around Israel. Whether it is the right call or not only time will tell.

According to our council they are not obliged to collect separate garden waste so can charge for it 🤬

When I went to secondary school I had a Kagol in my bag to wear over my blazer if it rained😇. In middle (junior) school, canvas parkas were the fashion with ‘fur’ edging, the smell of those drying out in the cloakroom I remember to this day. I also remember those who got very wet on the way to primary school had to go to lost property and had given the most uncoordinated shorts and shirt combinations😂 Other primary school memories are saw dust being put down if a child had been sick and the medical room which only had few treatments, basically witch hazel for bumps and bruises, and dettol, savlon (germalene) with a plaster for grazes and cuts.

Our council says that 60%+ other councils already charge and councils aren’t obliged to collect garden waste anyway, apparently!

I’m trying to arrange an annual gas boiler service. The engineer that fitted our boiler 16 years ago and has serviced it every year since then has retired. I paid him £60 per service, I’ve contacted another recommended engineer and he has come back with a quote of £120+vat (£144), so will get more quotes. I know that that my long standing engineer was charging a ‘mates rate’ but the new charge seems a bit steep for a 30 to 45 minutes visit. What have other people been charged for a gas boiler service?

Here we have a black rubbish bin, a grey one for all recycling and a brown bin for garden/food waste. I have for many years paid for a second garden waste bin due to the size of our garden but from the end of this year there are no ‘free’ first garden bins and the council will charge £56 per bin, so for me x2.

There was thick fog and 14c when I went to bed last night but now it’s hazy sunshine and still 14c. It’s forecast to be raining here for much of tomorrow so I’ll get some gardening jobs done today. I also need to arrange a gas boiler service, the guy who fitted our boiler 16 years ago and serviced it every year since isn’t responding to my texts/emails so I need to find another gas safe engineer.

I was looking forward to a nice sunny summer like day today as but so far rather disappointingly cloudy and cooler at 18c than forecast.

Sounds like bad news for this area near Crewe with the scrapping of HS2. There was to be a new hub station and a maintenance yard nearby. The West Coast mainline is suffering from congestion even now so they will have to come up with an alternative for the Birmingham to the north west stretch of line. It seems to have been ok though to spend £14 billion on the 20+ mile Elizabeth Line in London. We can already get to London in 1.5 hours so the reduction to 1 hour IMO doesn’t warrant the cost but something has to be done about the capacity and quality of our railway lines countrywide.

Up early to watch the Ryder cup 😴

16c, dry and breezy here this morning, we only had strong gusty winds for an hour or so yesterday early evening. Trees were rocking quite a bit as they still have most of their leaves still on. DW has taken her mum (nearly 90) to get her flu jab this morning, she had her C one last week. We are holding out getting our flu jabs (and covid for my wife, I don’t qualify this year🙁), we have a cruise in November/December and all of February so want to have maximum protection for then.

After the weather this summer the garden plants are having a mixed outcome this autumn. Our elderberry shrubs which flowered beautifully in June the berries are all shrivelled and the leaves are falling already, but the holly and cotoneaster have lots of lovely berries and the roses have repeat flowered all summer with more buds coming. The grass has had spring growth all summer l’ve never had to mow it so often!

I haven’t seen why but may be because of stormy weather a day or so ago?

Yes just tying up now at 9.25.

Yeh inexplicably we took on your ex manager Nathan Jones who set us on the path to relegation last season. Why can’t we just employ a manager who gets the best out of the players that they have rather then deploying their system and ideology😒

16c and windy here but rain has stopped. Spent yesterday afternoon in a car dealer waiting area for 3.5 hours whilst our car was being serviced and MOTd, weather in the end wasn’t so bad so I could have walked to Festival Park but took my iPad and it whiled away the time but left more than £600 lighter😩 My team Southampton lost for the 3rd time in a row last night so I’m really frustrated, we have one of the best squad of players in the Championship but a clueless manager!!

We were on Arcadia last month and we didn’t have a problem with the quality of the food in mdr. The menu is a bit restrictive but there were only a couple of nights where I had to go for steak, which I probably would have had a couple of times anyway. The chicken breast was always on, the steak not on some nights, both would benefit IMO if they offered a choice of different sauces to go with them. We don’t normally do puddings but sometimes have cheese and biscuits, we tend to have 2 starters and the main only.

I’m off to Stoke on Trent this afternoon for the car to be serviced and MOT, was hoping to kill the waiting time by walking to the Festival Park shops but the weather isn’t good so seems unlikely. This year I do not qualify for a free flu or other jab at all🙁 Maybe they’ll lower the age for the other jab later in the autumn, especially if there are stocks left and poor uptake. My wife is also caught in the shingles jab age gap, she’s over 65 but can’t have it until 70 under the recent rules.

We missed the severe weather here yesterday. No thunder and lightning or any signs of overnight heavy rain. Rain is forecast for later though.

I miss the pre-cruise arrival through the post of tickets and luggage labels in a cruise line wallet 2 weeks or so before departure. It gave us a special feeling that our holiday was imminent.

On our Arcadia cruise last month on formal nights we saw one man being asked to leave the mdr and another to leave the Crows Nest for not meeting the dress code.

I expect the new tyres will be Mich better😉I know people who used to work there and then got jobs over the border in Cheshire.